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introduction
On December 22, 2023, Zhu Ling left.
Twenty-nine years ago, this talented woman from Tsinghua University was poisoned with thallium. After that, Zhu Ling's life trajectory was completely rewritten, her IQ changed to the level of a child of only seven or eight years old, her vision and hearing were damaged to varying degrees, and even her once sunny and healthy body was on the verge of semi-paralysis.
(Zhu Ling after poisoning)
However, it is unimaginable that Zhu Ling is already relatively lucky among the victims of thallium poisoning. In the first thallium poisoning case in the United States, the victim not only died violently after just a few days, but even affected two children......
1. Dead housewives
Peggy is a housewife with three children. After the breakdown of her first marriage, Peggy remarried a man named Pai with her three children.
Pai works as a miner, has a failed marriage, and has custody of two children. Pai and Peggy form a large family and live together in a separate home in Florida.
(Peggy & Pye)
Peggy's life in Florida is monotonous and peaceful, she usually works in a restaurant, chats with customers when she goes to work, and then goes home after work to enjoy her life.
Maybe even Peggy herself thought that this happiness would last forever, but it was clear that she was wrong.
(Peggy with her children)
In 1988, Peggy suddenly felt some discomfort at work, her fingers and toes were so painful that she even had some trouble breathing.
Peggy quickly asked for leave from the restaurant and went to the hospital for a check-up, but the doctor told Peggy that she was fine, and that her shortness of breath and pain in her limbs might just be caused by overwork.
With the doctor's assurance, Peggy went home to recuperate, and her husband didn't take the matter to heart, so Peggy took some cold medicine and left her alone.
But that night, Peggy's daughter noticed that Peggy was short of breath and almost fell into a coma! The family rushed Peggy to the main hospital.
(Victim Yoshi)
Peggy's hair on the hospital bed fell out in large quantities, and her whole body was twisted, obviously in great pain.
To make matters worse, Peggy's two children, Duane and Travis, also developed pain in their limbs, chest tightness and shortness of breath, and soon lay down in a hospital bed with Peggy.
Duane and Travis were two young men as strong as oxen, and even they fell. Obviously, the reasons behind this incident are not simple......
Soon, Peggy and her two children were admitted to a larger hospital, where experts examined them for their condition and quickly identified the lesion – heavy metal poisoning.
However, common heavy metal poisonings such as arsenic and mercury were not found in Peggy's blood. In desperation, the experts had no choice but to send the urine of the three Peggy to the laboratory in Atlanta.
In the laboratory, the truth about the poisoning of Peggy and others was finally revealed, and it was thallium poisoning that they encountered, and the thallium content in Peggy's body exceeded the normal value by more than 20,000 times......
(Lethal Elemental - Thallium)
Under this devastation, Peggy died soon after, in her hospital bed. And this medical incident has officially become a criminal case.
2. Lock up the murderer
After discovering that Peggy was thallium poisoned, the doctors at the hospital called the police.
The reason why doctors are so sensitive is that thallium is an extremely difficult to obtain deadly substance, which is produced in the earth's crust and can be used in a wide range of applications such as electronics and chemicals.
(Position of thallium in the periodic table of chemical elements)
However, thallium itself is very toxic, and if ingested in excess, it can be life-threatening. What's worse is that the thallium salt made of thallium is colorless, odorless, and easily soluble in water, and it is difficult for patients to find abnormalities even if they have a blood test after being poisoned.
It is no exaggeration to say that thallium is the perfect weapon for murder.
Because of this, the United States has very strict controls on thallium, and its use is only approved in necessary factories and laboratories, and the average person has no chance of coming into contact with this deadly poison.
After learning about the case, the first target of the police's suspicion is Peggy's husband Pye. Pai is a cold person, and is one of the closest people to Peggy, with the most opportunities to be poisoned. And Pai also buys Peggy a high amount of insurance, and the beneficiary is himself.
(Picture from the Internet)
However, the police quickly ruled out the possibility of Pai's crime after investigation, because Pai was just an ordinary miner, not only did he not have the knowledge of poisoning chemistry, but he also had no access to thallium in his life.
What's more, the police found thallium in all of the Pai's family, but it was only because of the small intake that they did not have a seizure.
Obviously, the poisoning case was an external crime, and the police immediately asked Pai to recall whether his family had ever made a feud with others. After a moment of reminiscence, Pai recounted an incident to the police.
A few months ago, a neighbor of the Pai family came to the door and bluntly said that the family was too noisy. Later, Pai also received a "threatening letter" that read:
(Mysterious Threat Letter)
"You and your so-called family have two weeks to move out of Frerida forever, or you'll all die!"
The letter was not mailed directly to Pai's mailbox, but was placed on the hood of his vehicle. At first, Pai dismissed the letter as a joke and didn't care at all, but now it seems that the person who sent the letter was extremely criminal.
If the poisoner can put the letter on the hood of Pai's vehicle, it means that he is not too far away from Pai's family, combined with Pai's aforementioned neighbors coming to the door, the police immediately interrogate the neighbors around Pai's family, and finally locked up a man named George.
(Suspect George)
George is a chemist with a strong theoretical background in chemistry, having worked in a laboratory before being imprisoned for illegally manufacturing and selling methamphetamine, and was recently released from prison.
After locking up George, the police immediately sent someone to question him. George showed unusual calmness under the cross-examination of the police, and answered all the questions of the police without any flaws.
Therefore, it is impossible for the police to directly brand George, who has not yet revealed his flaws, as a criminal, and the progress of the case has reached a bottleneck.
3. Young female policemen go undercover to solve the case
After the police conducted a closer examination of George, they found that this person was not simple, he not only had a rich knowledge of chemistry, but also one of the members of the world's top IQ club, Mensa Club, and his IQ level should be above 150.
(George's Mensa Club)
In the face of such a high-IQ suspect, it is naturally difficult for the police to break through his psychological defense line from words.
Just when the police were in a desperate situation, they suddenly found half a box of unopened Coke in Peggy's house, and with the mentality of giving it a try, the police sent the Coke for testing. However, the test results showed that there was a high dose of thallium in these cokes, and the inconspicuous cola was the murder weapon!
(Coke murder weapon accidentally discovered)
After a closer examination of the Coke bottle, the police finally found traces of the bottle mouth being pried open. Apparently, the suspect pried open the cola and put it in a thallium substance, then restored the bottle and dropped it in the Peggy family.
This meticulous criminal method is really sweating, and the police are even more convinced that George, who has a high IQ, is the real culprit behind this case.
In order to achieve a breakthrough in the case, the police send a young police officer named Susan as an undercover agent, hoping to find clues to the truth by contacting George.
(Susan in undercover)
As a senior member of the Mensa Club, George often hosts member-themed events similar to today's popular "Script Killing", where members draw characters and interpret stories to achieve their own goals.
At the time, George held an event called Mensa Murder Weekend......
Susan quickly jumped at the chance and became a member of the Mensa Club and attended George's events.
(Mensa Membership Event posted by George)
During the event, Susan's thoughtful thinking was appreciated by George, and the two soon became "friends". George revealed to Susan that he and his wife may be moving out of Florida to another city in the near future.
Susan seized the opportunity and said that she just needed to buy a house, and under George's kind invitation, Susan even came to George's house in person, but did not obtain substantial evidence.
(Susan and George become "friends")
A year has passed, and Susan's undercover mission still hasn't come to an end, and just as the police are in despair, George suddenly moves out and rents the house to Susan.
(Youngling undercover Susan)
Susan soon burst into George's house with a large number of police officers and FBI agents, and conducted a carpet search of the entire house.
Soon, the police found a large number of chemicals from George's house, including a vial of thallium nitrate.
(Thallium nitrate found in George's house)
And this thallium nitrate is also the culprit that caused Peggy's death! After a year, the case finally made decisive progress, and the police immediately issued a search warrant and conducted a carpet search of George's new home.
During this search, the police found a set of mini jewelry tools, which, according to laboratory identification, matched the dents on the Coke bottle found in Peggy's family! George was the real murderer in this case!
(Pry bottle tool used by George)
In April 1990, George was formally arrested and interrogated, where he was charged with murder and poisoning, among other crimes, and eventually sentenced to death.
Whether it is the Zhu Ling thallium poisoning case or the Florida poisoning case, the real culprits behind it are high-IQ groups, and how to balance knowledge and morality may be a question we really need to explore.
(George in the courtroom)
George, who has an IQ of 150, is obviously a smart man, but he poisoned his neighbor's whole family because he was "noisy", can such a bad and childish behavior really be called smart?
Resources:
Zhu Ling died!Thallium poisoning for 29 years, why is a similar tragedy staged around the world? Sohu,2023-12-23
The first thallium poisoning case in the United States occurred in 1988, and it was also a high-IQ crime.Tiger Pounce, 2023-12-24